Peggy Paperdoll

Send a notecard instead...his IM's may have capped and he's not getting yours. And just so you know, Phil is a regular here in the forums. He's quite nice and very helpful when you can be of assistance. I'm sure he will do what he can to resolve your issues......he's been making low prim (scripted) furniture for years and I know he won't jeopardise his reputation or business by ignoring any of this customers.

There hasn't been a change. The billing contact numbers have always been listed here: https://support.secondlife.com/billing-support/ I believe, at one time, there were several more numbers for outside the US/Canada but that change was a couple years ago when LL closed some of the offices outside the US. You can always use the long distance number (703.286.6277)......use Skype to avoid the some or all of the long distance fees. A few years ago I explored some of the SL like virtual worlds. One stands out in my mind (though I cannot remember the name of the world) that originated out of Germany. It was DirectX based, which I thought might improve some of the inherent problems in SL (it didn't) is the reason I tried it. What I did notice immediately (because, if I can't get support for billing I won't opt into any money exchange with them) is that there was no billing contact number for outside Germany. LL, with all their faults, has, for a very long time, provided avenues for support for major population areas outside the the US..........that hasn't changed at all for SL billing support.

You don't have to ask your husband for the specs we need to help. Launch your viewer but don't try to log in. Under the help menu click "About Second Life". The specs listed are all we need....copy and paste them back here. Don't start a new thread. Use the "Options" in the upper right corner of your post and "Edit" to add the specs and any other comments you might want to add. Off the top of my head I'm going to guess you have a cache problem. I would suggest a manual cache clearing instead of the regular clearing through the preferences. To do that launch your veiwer again but don't bother to log in. Under "Me" (assuming you are using SL Viewer 3.**) look on the tab that you use to clear you cache (V-3, that tab is "Advanced"). You'll see the location of the cache on your computer. Make note of that location and close the viewer. Navigate to that location on your computer and manually delete everything in the "Cache" folder. Reboot your computer and then try SL again. It appears you have more than one account on your computer. It's a good idea to move the cache location of one of your accounts to a different location on your computer. You can do that in Preferences on the same tab that you used to find your cache location.

Run your virus/mal-ware scan and read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_file_system

I'm sure everyone who was on the old VB forums remembers that it was a virtual free for all. LL completely ignored the forums and presented absolutely no moderation. It wasn't always that way but the last year or so it sure was. There were vicious arguments with name calling and insults. I'm not one that objects to hard fought "forum fights"........I participated in my fair share (maybe more than my fair share in fact). But there were quite a few who professed to be offended and outraged by some of the threads and called on LL to do something about it.........they did. The brought in the Jive software for the forums and clamped down big time on the posters who were less than polite (yeah I got several posts deleted along with several warnings). Many of the users left at that point......some because of the over reaction on LL's part but, I believe, most left because they could no longer do as they pleased on the forums. Jive was absolutely horrid for use as a forum.......it simply did not work. It was worse than this software as far as intuitive use is concerned. I'm glad they got rid of it.........and, compared to Jive, this software is a dream come true. It's changes that forced others to leave. I stayed because I can adapt and I wanted to be part of the SL forums. I could not get enthused with a third party forum even though it was populated by SL'ers. I think (yeah I still do) that if you want to talke SL or help others in SL you should be on the "official forums". It's changes......some accept them, some don't. It's the people that make up a forum (not the company that supplies the forums). Some good people left back them but most people who left really needed to leave.......they simply did not like LL or SL and only stayed around on the forums to infect others with their bad attitude. I've gotten used to this software (even though it is not very good for a forum) and toned down my posts. It serves it's purpose more than either the old VB or Jive forums did. Though, I do believe LL could have solved the problems in the VB without moving to some blog software for a forum. They didn't do it that way so I adapted. PS: Zap, I think you know what I'm talking about. How many fights did you and I have?

Pluses and minus for both methods. One's easier to initially set up, one's not. One's less prone to outside factors that are often not in the control of the user. Both can work. I did not say anything else. Only that using one (the wireless method) requires more to guarantee (as much as either method can guarantee) reliable, consistant connections. I'm not arguing that. I'm suggesting that anyone should use one method over the other.........I'm suggesting that if anyone wants to use one method (the wireless method) they need to do things that anyone using the other method (the wired method) does not have to concern themselves with. That's it......nothing more, nothing less. I'm done arguing.

No I don't have a short fuse today (I didn't get up on the wrong side of the bed). What set me off with your post was your initial statement that my statement was a "bold" one and I couldn't produce and "proper data" to back it up. That's confrontational and argumentitve from the very start. My statement was not bold.......it was a statement based on both observations and unverified "facts" from reading numerous posts and complaints about SL and wireless connections. It also has a little bit to do with LL's refusal to endorse wireless for SL access (LL is the "expert" here). The only fact there is about wireless use for SL is that there are many more complaints about issues when using wireless.......everything else is conjecture and opiinon. I know (for a fact) that wireless can be successful with SL........I've observed it with my own eyes. But that does not say that wireless doesn't have issues with SL where hardwired does not (that, also, is a fact). I cannot produce and "proper data" to support my opinion any more that you can produce the data to back up your claims......that data is not available. Yet you challenged me to produce the "proper data". That is the reason for my second post directed at you. You disputed my "opinion" by the "proper data" insertion. You know the data is not available. I never said wireless will not work.......in fact I said it will. I tried to tell the reasons why is works for some and by telling that I also tried to tell why it might not work for others. If you want me to "endorse" for use with SL, I cannot do that with a clear conscious. There are just too many obstacles to deal with that you don't have to deal with on and Ethernet connection. Everything stated in these forums are "bold" statements with no way to produce "proper data". As far as I know no one in these forums are experts in Linden Lab........of course I could be wrong, Who knows who anyone here is? One, or more, of the posters could be LL experts in disguise (and we would never know).

"That's a pretty bold statement, I very much doubt you can back that up with proper data. Ofcourse I could be wrong. People who do not have issues don't say so because there's nothing to say in the first place, that is until a thread like this pops up and as you can see at least most people responding, have no issues at all with wifi. ..." ------------------------------------------------------------------- No that was not a "pretty bold" statement and no I do not have "proper data" to back it up. That is very obvious and you know perfectly well that no data that is available to anyone in these forums to even try to back a statement like mine up. That holds equally true for you "pretty bold" statement. I believe it was obvious from the entirety of my post that my observations (and therefore my opinions) about WiFi were just that........opinions. I used words like "believe" that directly imply that my statement is opinion. I also spent a few words and sentences relating that my location and the way I have my network set up is not typical of others' locations and setups (but, no I cannot back that up either......it's an opinion). I did say that my friend can use WiFi successfully at my house.......so, even though I do use WiFi myself, I was actually one of those responding the expressed "no issues" with WiFi except the few and very limited experiments that my friend and I tried....those experiments were not scientific and therefore the results were not conclusive.........they merely backed up what I believe (please the the word "believe") to be issues with WiFi and SL. I only posted in this thread because the OP asked for tips..........I gave some that I thought might be helpful. How did you attempt to help the OP. All you've said is your WiFi works fine. The OP wants to know how he/she can make his/her WiFi work fine too. You only decided to jump in to dispute what I said. And how is that helping the OP? It is a known fact that WiFi often causes issues...........you can "back that up" with a search for wireless issues and problems in these forums (make sure you go back a few years.....like back to 2003 or so). Nothing's changed much with WiFi except speed and security......it's still a transmitted signal across the air. There are still millions of transmissions across the air at almost unlimited frequencies (actually there are more transmissions now than just a few years ago due to the advent of digital transmissions taking my less bandwidth than the old analog signals........take the across the air television signals recently go all digital to open up the frequencies for more traffic). WiFi is subject to interference that wired is not subject to....that, my friend, is a fact. And because of that fact one needs to try to limit the exposure to those potential interferring signals. That is what I tried to do..........not taut wired over wireless. If you can use wireless successfully that's great........if you can't then you need to try things to make it possible to use wireless great just like you. That's what I tried to do..........and I get an argument from my attempts (and not from the OP........from someone who chimed in just to dispute me).

Hi Zap. Yeah this is the place for such a gripe What's it's going to do though way up in the air. We could have a long drawn out discussion about how awkward and un-intuitive this make believe forum is and next year at this time we'll still have the awkward, un-intuitive mess that we have today. But I remember you from the only VBulletin forums of yesteryear....and I also know that you know that. Good to see you again Zap. It's been like forever since I've read anything from you on any forum. Carry on......I want to see if this gets as predictable as I think it will be.........bash city for Linden Lab.

That can be a sign that your graphics adapter is about to go south. It also could be a monitor dying (but I doubt it unless you are using an old CRT monitor..........that's the way my CRT monitor acted just before it went very dark a about 6 or 7 years ago.).

There are lots of people who run SL on a wireless connection successfully.......and many more who cannot run SL at all on wireless. I know it can be done successfully. But I also know it can be difficult to maintain the connection and that there are more than normal spats of heavy lag that wireless connections have to endure. I don't have a laptop and I'm really not a fan of them. But I have a very good friend (who joined SL a couple days before I joined......she's the one who convinced me to try SL the first time after I saw a news blurp on TV and told her about it. She tried it and then I did) who about a year ago went to the bad side and got a lap top. She occassionally visits me with her lap top under her arm and we "play" SL from the same room. She can run SL with medium settings and gets decent frame rates (usually around 20 but I've seen as high as 40 or so). It takes her textures a few seconds longer to load than my desktop but not really that noticible......nothing most would complain about. She connects wirelessly through my router. Now there are few things that make easier for her to use SL over what I believe most people have or do. First, my router is locked down tight. I authorized her laptop to use my connection (and her iPhone and iPad too).......other than her laptop, iPhone and iPad the only other wireless device that has authorization to connect through my router is my iPhone. Everything else that connects to through my router is hardwired. Then there's the fact that my router is about 3 ft from my desktop tower and less than 8 ft from the coffee table where my friend sits her laptop when she comes over with it. There are no obstructions since the router is sitting on a small wicker shelf mounted on the wall about 6 ft off the floor.....a direct, unobstucted line of sight from the laptop to the router. My router is the "N" model so it's faster than the old "G" models. I live in an older nieghborhood where there is space between the houses and no one my block has a garage door opener (most have car ports instead of garages). I have no land phone in my home (I gave that up for the cell phone). I have no fancy wireless appliances, no wireless security, no wireless stereo system. I'm a firm believer in copper wire for most stuff. I have a "smart" TV......it's connected with an Ethernet cable. All that means is that my location, the way I have my network set up and the fact that I took extra steps to make sure my network is as secure as it reasonably be makes wireless less of a problem for my friend than what most people have to deal with. We did a few experiments since both of us had heard all these horror stories about wireless and SL. For the most part there is little outside interference to deal with due to my location but having my network locked down helps too..........there are no random smart phones from someone walking down the street or driving by. They cannot connect so they don't interfere with my network. We decided to "simulate" someone randomly connecting to the network. I launched my browser on my iPhone which connects through my router wirelessly........less than 5 seconds later my friend lost connection to the SL servers (she got booted). My desktop never hiccupped. She relogged and then she launched her browser on her phone and the same thing happened. We called each other using our phone's cell provider service.......it did not effect her on SL. It's hit and miss. A time or two I've called her on her cell phone when she was on SL at her house........and she complained to me that I booted her from SL. Other times nothing effected her SL. There are times when she loses her connection often and times where she never loses connection.......that has happened here in my house too (just not as often as at her house.....but that's really hard to judge since she's only brought her laptop over to my house a few times). Using wireless connection for SL is simply unpredictable..........sometimes it works great and sometimes it doesn't. I know I suspect unsecured networks as one of the biggest culprits causing wireless conections to fail. Every time we used our phones to connect via the router, she got booted (almost immediately).

It depends on how the shelf was made as to whether or not it will give the same results. The alpha sorting glithch (it's not something that is particular to SL but to digital images everywhere) occurs when your viewing angle to the objects line up so that one object is in front of the other object........if both objects contain an alpha channel video cards have trouble discerning which object is supposed to be front and which is supposed to be behind. The textures will appear to swap back and forth or superimpose on each other. The problem shows up in SL a lot because most creators are amateurs and don't understand what channels are, let alone what an alpha channel is. To make sure the glitch does not show up the creator needs to make sure a texture containing an alpha channel is never able to be viewed when in line with another texture containing an alpha channel. Removing the alpha channel from a texture that does not require transparency will not effect the texture (other than taking out an unnecessay channel.....which it good for rendering and does effect texture lag in a good way). If you shelf is a single cube with a texture using an alpha channel to make it see through where it should be then removing the alpha channel will destory the texture (or, at least, make it not suitable for a shelf). If any items you place on the shelf have an alpha channel and the shelf has an alpha channel the it will glitch. The trick is to only use textures that absolutely have to have an alpha channel in front of textures that don't have an alpha channel. A common misconception with amateur texture creators is that a 32 bit texture is better in some way than a 24 bit texture and so they save all their textures at 32 bit thinking it's better. Each texture has channels to define the detail and colors of the texture.........8 bits for red, 8 bits blue and 8 bits for green. Those three channels will give you every color you can see...you don't need any more. But there is a 4th channel. It, too, is 8 bits. It's called the alpha channel. It's sole purpose for existance is to define transparency..........if you don't need any transparency then don't save the alpha channel. The alpha channel does not make the texture more detail or more colorful........it just gives transpency to the texture and nothing more. As you can see each channel is 8 bits. That's data that your video card must process..........and, if it's processing some needless channel it will contribute to lag (not only for you but for everyone who is within their draw distance). That's why people constantly say do not use alpha channels unless absolutely necessary.

I don't think so..........large caches present problems all their own. You're assuming that once downloaded and placed in the cache it's there for use. That's true as long as there are no changes since the texture or object was placed in the cache.......but that's a rare thing. Everything changes constantly in SL. Any cache (not just SL caches) get heavily fragmented due the constant saving of data.....that data gets thrown helter skelter into the cache. A large cache has much more room to scatter all that data. There is point where there's diminishing returns..........it takes longer to find all the bits and pieces it defeats the purpose of even having a cache. Larger caches that are heavily fragmented tend to get corrupted more often than smaller caches.....again that defeats the purpose of a cache. I've found the LL default cache size it just about right........500 MB.

Wireless is unpredictable at best for SL. Even under ideal circumstances you never know when your nieghbor turns on his/her stereo that has wireless speakers, or your nieghbor's son starts playing with his brand new remote controlled dune buggy in his basement, or your across the street nieghbor opens their garage door with the remote........your "smart" TV gets a Netflix update, or the Internet enabled refridgerator updates the clock. There are infinite potential sources for interference.......most of which you have no control over. That's why LL (and most people here) discourage wireless for SL. But, there are a few things that you can do that might help. First, try to get a clear shot at the router....avoid as many walls as possible between your laptop and the router. If there are any steel (or metal) cabinets between you and the router position yourself with your laptop so that the cabinets are not in direct line with the router. Try to stay as close as possible to the router (if it's in your parents bedroom and your bedroom is across the house and upstairs, then maybe find a better place like the living room (get closer to the router). If you have access to the router configuration then "lock down" the router to only allow specified wireless devices to connect.......if you don't have that access have one of your parents do that (not only will that help a little on the quality of the wireless signal but it helps the security of the whole home network). And don't get frustrated when things get wonky........or you get disconnected from the servers. That's a product of using wireless.

"... And to respond to the other oh-so-helpful informal tech support request: which viewer I'm using doesn't matter, because I have installed and use daily the latest official viewer, and up-to-date Firestorm, Dolphin 3, Catznip, and Exodus viewers. I rotate through viewers as well as login locations, and the symptoms are identical. Very long login connection, half-rendered world, and logout." -------------------------------------------- Here you are wanting some help because you have a problem. You don't accurately try to discribe your problem and don't give any system specifications about your computer. You immediately jump to the conclusion that your problem is not your problem at all.......it's Linden Lab's problem. You make grand statements about the entire grid experiencing the problem(s) you are experiencing. And you expect someone to give you information or help you with your problem. When you don't get the "help" you seem to want you lash out at people who just may be able to help if you provide some information. Most people would jump at the chance to help someone help them..........but not you. Why is that? Who p**'d in your Wheaties this morning? Here's my suggestion. You're so well informed and experienced and know exactly what the problem is. Fix it yourself. And quit attacking the people who want to help. People who, by the way, are much more experienced, smarter, and know infinitely more than you do. *I don't care if you are ever able to log in again.......not with the attitude you have*.

Hi Raul..........long time no see. *much too long in fact*

I guess I quality as an "old timer". This avatar first regestered on the forums in April, 2006. I first joined SL in October, 2005 with another account and that account did not participate in the forums but just lurked. I remember Pie. Once in a while someone shouts "Pie" at the Forum Cartel. But I haven't been there in ages.

Oh I remember the Jessie wars....they were still going on when I came to SL in 2005. I stayed away.......I was chicken and didn't learn to use a weapon until pretty late (like about 2007 or so). But the forum posts were great fun to read back then

"... While none of us know how many Premium Sign Ups there are, Forty sign ups per day from one persons leads makes me scratch my head." ------------------------------------------------- It leads me to more than a little scratching. The only way I can see that happening is either through lying (fraud) or gaming some "loophole" in the ToS of Google. Getting 40 Premium sign-ups per day on any platform, game, or site that requires one to spend real life money is way beyond my ability to believe it's being done legally or fairly. To the OP.........go talk to Google. LL won't help you. How can they when Google says you are banned for cause? If you owned a business would risk that business for someone making claims that are really fantastic (and probably false)? I don't think so..........not when you came a Linden Lab site to whine about being banned from a Google site. You need to go hide, like I said, and lick your wounds.

Google thinks otherwise. You need to tak this up with them. Linden Lab is not going to help you and no one here can help you. You violated some TOS rule or you got caught doing something illegal. If you can't get satisfaction with the people who banned you then you have a legal system to explore.........or you can go hide and lick your wounds. It's not an SL problem and not a Linden Lab problem but you are whinning here.

Lame experience? Okay, if you say so........good luck with any of those setups. Specs are specs......they simply don't lie. On chipset GPU's and discrete GPU's spec'd below mid range will never give you top end performance......and Ultra requires top end performance. Maybe "smoothly" for you is crap for me.........have fun. You asked, not me. I would never purchase a 2 year old graphics card that was spec'd two divisions below mid-range and expect it to run SL at Ultra. Especially a card that is priced at $30 USD. Two years ago that card was a weak card..........it's weaker today due to the added features of SL. But, you are the expert I guess..........I mean after all you asked the question so I guess you already know the answer.

None of the three will run SL "smoothly" at ultra settings. Actually I think you only posted two....one CPU with the GPU intergrated into the CPU chipset and one CPU with a discrete graphics card. The intergrated GPU will not handle Ultra smoothly at all. And the nVidia GT 430 card is not strong enough.........in fact, it's barely better than the intergated GPU. I'm sorry, but you are going to have to spend a little more than $30 for a card capable of running SL at Ultra "smoothly" Of course that depends entirely on what you call "smoothly". In my eyes niether will run SL "smoothly" even at high settings let alone Ultra.

I'm pretty sure you will have to file a support ticket like Charolott said but since you own mainland you are a premium member so try Live Chat to see if they can help. Probably not but it's worth a try.

2003 was a couple years before my time but oh how I remember the simpler SL. No flexible prims, no windlight, no water reflections, no mesh.........and we all were so amazed at what people could do with those basic prim building blocks. Thanks for memories..........I look forward to new postings. Thank you so much.

It looks like you got yourself banned from Affiliate Network, no Second Life. Why the heck are you posting your problem here?